"Me and books tied the knot and will so for life."

Month: April 2017

I haven’t posted a haul in a while but anyway… here is one! I would like to thank a number of people for the lovely books and gifts such as Accent Press YA, HarperCollins and both Karen (Accent Press) and Eleanor (HarperCollins) for the opportunities!

On top of the pile, is Storms by Chris Vick. Storms in Chris’s second novel. This is a YA Contemporary Romance about Jake and Hannah who are very close until Hannah is taken away by an opportunity that arises and the actions surrounding them both afterwords. The edition I have is final edition paperback. Thanks to Eleanor for inviting me to review Storms.

The other two books are from Accent YA. They are The Deepest Cut by Natalie Flynn. I have a final edition copy, this is about Adam who had a best friend that died and he blames himself for that death. He ends up in a local mental health facility where he writes about what happened before the death. I will be taking part in a tour for this book in June so stay tuned! And Between The Raven and the Dove by Sophia Kingshill. I have the ARC for this.

Those are the sales points for the book in the picture above if you were interested in reading ages and if you wanted to see any book comparisons. This is a story about a thirteen year old girl called Mag who learns that she may be a witch.

The swag from the first picture in this post is a promotional postcard of The Deepest Cut, a bookmark from Between The Raven and the Dove, a bookmark from the author Stefan Bachmann that came with a signed copy of his book A Drop of Night and a handwritten note from Karen over at Accent Press.

As always, another big thank you to those who sent me the books and swag, they look great in my book bedroom!

Alice x

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Book Specialist Volunteer, looks like a really fancy title right? For anyone who loves books, this role is perfect for you but be prepared to carry heavy piles of books around and sort out the donations thoroughly from top to bottom.

I’ve only been in this role for over a month but in that amount of time, I’ve learnt that my help is making a difference to the charity I chose to support. It’s a local one that helps homeless people in the area I live in, providing them with a shelter, warm food and someone to talk to. I volunteer currently six hours a week which equals two mornings.

My duties include sorting through donations that are in the stockroom, pricing books, adding GiftAid labels to bags of books donated by those who GiftAid to the charity and rotate the stock in the shop. I have to sort through the fiction and non-fiction books, the best condition ones we keep, the books with ripped pages or water damage for example are recycled.

If any books of value come in, then I put them to one side and the main books volunteer goes through them and checks a website to see how much money they are being sold for. The best ones go on the shop’s eBay page with 100% of the money going back to the charity.

So how am I finding it all?

Enjoyable, I don’t like touching books that are incredibly sticky but besides that, I always like to talk about reading and get excited if a book turns out to be worth a lot. Any books that are put out for recycling, I get first pick if I want it so sometimes I come home with books 😛

For someone who wants to get into publishing and volunteering with someone who used to be in publishing, I’ve learnt a lot in such a short amount of time. I have plans to continue with the charity when I go back to College.

Any questions you may have, feel free to leave them in the comments section of this post. See you all soon!

Synopsis:
She was hidden from the world. Then he arrived.
An emotional new novel from six-time USA Today bestselling author Deanna Roy

For four years, I’ve lived in almost total seclusion. Homeschooled, forbidden from social media, seeing no one other than the dancers at Dreamcatcher Academy, where I teach ballet to little girls in wheelchairs.

Then Blitz arrives.

He’s the disgraced host of Dance Blitz, a bawdy reality show where Blitz sleeps with as many dancers as possible while looking for his perfect partner.

At least he was. A few weeks ago, he got kicked off his own show.

He’s at my academy for a publicity stunt, and my wheelchair ballerinas are his ticket back into the public’s good graces.

I intend to hate him and stay as far away as possible. But when he looks at me, I can’t resist. Before I realize what’s happened, we’re sneaking into back rooms, dancing, kissing, planning dates away from the cameras and the wrath of my family.

But I’m afraid. I have a secret at the academy, a small, wonderful, terrible secret, and if I stay with Blitz, the world will find out.

My review: When I heard that this was going to be made into a a series, I leapt at the chance to read Forbidden Dance. I love reading stories that involve dancing/the main character being a dancer. Livia has been living under house arrest for four years after a scandal that rocked her life. Her strict father doesn’t allow any form of social media or telephone to use but does allow her to study ballet. It’s during a ballet class that she meets Blitz, the host of a reality TV show that he left in disgrace from. When their paths cross, Livia has to decide whether to stay on her family’s good side or break the rules so that she can experience a taste of freedom.

I loved reading the whole ballet aspects throughout and felt Livia’s pain as she had to deal with making choices for her future. It was a quick, easy read to get into. I found Blitz’s character to be a little bit shady at times but understood that this was part of his persona as a disgraced host. The ending was emotional and exciting to witness. But I’m not going to spoil it for you 😉

The second and third books are being released soon which I can’t wait to read!

She is a passionate advocate for women who have lost babies. She has several books on the subject, including her bestseller FOREVER INNOCENT, a romance about a couple whose baby is taken off life support at seven days old.

She has run the website PregnancyLoss.Info for fifteen years, including many large spin-off support groups both online and in person.

To learn about new releases, sign up for her subscriber list at http://deannaroy.com/news. She has regular giveaways in conjunction with major pregnancy loss events.